Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Service & Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

So I find that doing things for other people makes me happy. Like ridiculously happy. Even better? When I can serve someone I love.

This all goes back to a post my husband made on my Facebook Wall yesterday.

The evidence.

I worked my magic, and made the following reply this morning...

Nothing like results!

Apparently we weren't the only ones who thought these would be fabulous because the requests I've received for the recipe have been pouring in. So, here goes the story (with links to the idea origination, and the actual recipe I used).

I followed the link, and I agreed. These did look amazing. They also looked impossible for South Korea. They don't have Grand's here. And the average package of bacon comes with six strips. So, I had to improvise (as always happens in baking, right?).

First, I needed a cinnamon roll recipe. Since Mama is away at Spring Training in AZ, and the handwritten recipe my sister found at home is indecipherable I was left to the vast interweb to find something. I wanted a quick turnaround, so I spent a whole morning searching for something suitable. Finally, late last night, I finally found this. As you can see, it's a Southern Food recipe. Nobody does unhealthy goodness like the blessed people from the South, and the recipe was a cinch! Plus, it included a recipe for a nice glaze (I'm not a heavy, cream cheese frosting kind of girl after an unfortunate incident in the past).

Because I had to hand-roll all the cinnamon rolls at one time it increased the difficulty of ensuring nice, even rolls with their allotted two strips of bacon each (the end of the roll ended up without bacon, but who's going to turn down "regular old cinnamon rolls"? Um, nobody. That's who). But what's life without a little variety, right? I have a good serrated knife, but I opted for the dental floss method of slicing the rolls, and I'm so glad I did!

The gentle sawing might not have worked through the bacon, but the dental floss snapped right through it. Not familiar with the method? It's quite simple. Pull out a 12" piece of dental floss. Slide it under your roll, measure about 1 to 1 1/2", cross the floss at the top, and pull tight. It will slice right through the dough and the bacon. It's a lovely thing.

Anyhoo, with two packages of bacon baked to a done-but-flexible state, my oven was preheated, following the Southern Food recipe, and a lot of waiting we ended up with some very tasty bacon cinnamon rolls.

NOTES FOR EASE:

For the easiest rolls, follow the Rainy Day Gal's recipe. It's simple, it's fast, and I'm pretty sure they taste great. Although, as I was waiting out the process of dough rising, I had an idea to make it even easier.

Sometimes, for reasons I'll never fathom, people sprinkle raisins into their cinnamon rolls. Instead of trying to roll up whole strips of bacon, why not sprinkled bacon crumbles? No, not Bac-Os. We all know that's not real bacon. You can either cook and crumble the bacon yourself, or buy those handy bacon crumbles that are already bottled at the store (unless you live in South Korea like some of us...).

But for all the ease in the world, I'd never trade homemade/from-scratch taste.

I'll also make the note that the total time for the cinnamon rolls, from start to finish, was nearly three hours (including rising time). That may sound like a lot. Every single minute was worth it after that first, gooey, sticky bite still warm from the oven.